plea
noun
Simple meaning
An appeal, petition, urgent prayer or entreaty.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
pleeIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpli
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
An appeal, petition, urgent prayer or entreaty.
That which is alleged or pleaded, in defense or in justification.
An excuse; an apology.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An appeal, petition, urgent prayer or entreaty.
Used this way, plea is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a religious use: it carries the weight of tradition and ceremony.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Religion/spirituality
- Historical writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use plea
- “The defense attorney made a passionate plea for his client's innocence.”
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.